Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Why are we out here again?!”

“Don’t look at me with that tone of voice, this wasn’t part of my plan!”

“That’s not-” Logan sighed, giving up on interrupting Virgil and Roman’s bickering in order to correct Roman’s very incorrect phrase. Patton gave him a sympathetic smile and patted his arm, holding the torch out towards the ground so they wouldn’t trip. It was nearly pitch black, probably deep in the night by now, and they’d been walking for a good hour since leaving the car.

Roman was right though; the plan had definitely not included traipsing around in the dark until they’d essentially got lost as all hell in the middle of nowhere. No; the plan had been to drive to their cabin so they could enjoy their shared weekend away in style like they’d, you know, planned to.

Unfortunately Roman’s car breaking down had wormed it’s way into the itinerary and utterly ruined their time-frame and also their hopes for a nice, relaxing break.

“Look over there!” Logan and Patton’s heads shot up at Roman’s shout, hurrying to catch up with the other two. Their torches shone out into the night, through the trees to a clearing with a cabin that looked very similar to the one they were meant to be staying in. “Guys,” Roman began with a growing smile, “I think we sho-”

“No!” Virgil hissed immediately, face looking paler than usual in the harsh light. “Absolutely not. I’ve seen too many horror movies to go in there, and I know that’s what you were gonna suggest, don’t bother denying it!” Roman pouted but tellingly didn’t object, only turning his pleading eyes on the other two. Logan just shrugged, having thoroughly lost the will to care by this stage.

“Virge, it’s late and it’s cold and it might not even be unlocked,” Patton said softly, feeling much the same way Roman did on seeing a potential shelter for the night. “Can’t we just try it at least?”

“Over my dead body,” Virgil said, with determined finality, folding his arms to underscore how serious he was. “There is no way I’m going in there.”

“Gross,” Virgil muttered from the back of the group as they entered the surprisingly unlocked cabin. It was dusty inside, but nicely decorated and not in a bad state of repair apart from the clear lack of recent inhabitants. “I hate you all.”

“Aw don’t be such a Stig of the Dumps, Virgil,” Roman teased him, slinging an arm around his friend’s shoulders, and despite his irritation and constant anxiety Virgil looked a little comforted by the touch, sinking into it gratefully. “Look, we literally just have to get through one night and then we can sort things out tomorrow. Alright?”

They collectively decided to sleep in the main living room together, finding a few blankets and a set of covers from an upstairs bedroom and curling up across the two couches by the fireplace, sticking close for warmth and reassurance. One by one they fell asleep and the cabin was quiet.

Too quiet.

Nothing stirred; no sound was heard. Not even the breathing of the four men asleep inside. Somehow that noise was muffled and muted into nothing along with everything else.

And then the scratching started.

Patton, the lightest sleeper of the foursome, twitched. The scratching stopped, only to continue when he settled again, ticking along the inside of the chimney breast from up near the ceiling all the way down to where it opened into the room. Fingernails, long and claw-like, curled out from the fireplace and two deep, dark eyes glinted out at the intruders from the shadows.

The scratching resumed as the creature moved, using its fingernails to crawl up the wall and across the ceiling until it could stare directly down at the men, extending a slightly too long arm down to pluck curiously at the covers with one of those long nails, disturbing Patton yet again.

He shifted, wriggling around to get comfortable, toes tucked under Logan’s body next to him and head on the armrest, and yawned. The creature dropped weightlessly onto the back of the couch, slinking on its tiptoes and the back of its knuckles around his head and down to the floor, crouched in front of Patton and staring at him. The fingernails came out again, tugging a bouncy curl with almost no pressure whatsoever, watching the way Patton’s nose wrinkled in response. It touched a freckle, and then another freckle, feather light and barely noticeable even if Patton had been awake to know it was happening.

And then, in the darkness, the creature lifted its chin up high and made a soft cooing sound in its throat, somewhere between a pigeon and a modern interpretation velociraptor, fleeing swiftly back up the chimney when Patton jumped awake with a gasp, looking around. 

It watched from the darkness as the man clutched his chest and pulled the covers tighter to his chest as he calmed down and tried to get back to sleep. And it thought to itself- hearts in its eyes- that it would be best if it kept this one for itself. Yes that would be best. Something so pretty and precious and perfect should be kept and protected with it forever, it thought, and grinned with rows of pointed teeth, cooing again under its breath, too soft to hear. Yes it would keep the pretty boy, yes. Or else it would follow him as long as he lived, somehow or another.

Patton sighed in frustration as he failed to get back to sleep, unaware that only feet away the creature Remus was falling madly in love with him. 

Unaware for now, at least. But that wouldn’t remain true for long.

Chapter Text

The morning came over the house slowly but surely, drenching the room in weak sunlight. As it peeked over the backs of the couches into the sitting room the creature sat there skittered away with a soft hiss, retreating to the shadows with a mournful moan.

Remus didn’t know that much about the human world, inhabiting the interim, the in-between where shadows and liminal spaces ruled. It didn’t much like sunlight because it made its eyes hurt and its skin itch, but today it was going to risk it all.

Because Remus was in love. There was a boy, a real life human boy, on the couch in his home, and he was pretty and smart and sweet and kind and sure maybe Remus didn’t know most of that for a fact, nor did it know exactly what it meant, but it’d seen enough of those weird moving worlds on the magic box back when the house was inhabited that it’d figured out they were good things to be.

The boy in question was more of a young man, by the name of Patton. Remus didn’t know that yet, but it was in love anyway, and it wanted to make sure its paramour knew. It had planned on sitting in front of him all night until he woke up and fell gratefully into Remus’s arms, or something, but the sunlight had come and ruined that plan. The new plan was just to follow Patton through the dreaded light until they reached Patton’s home and Remus could settle into the shadows forever after for its happy ending. It’d seen those on the magic box too.

It listened, hidden away in his chimney, as the four men got up and set everything back into place in the house before hurrying away, and then, with a quick chitter to itself for confidence; it ran after them.

They hurried through the forest and followed the overgrown path they’d ended up on the night before, giving Remus plenty of cover nearby to stalk them, keeping Patton in its sights and cooing in distress whenever it lost sight of its love for more than a few moments. The odd silence followed it around in a little bubble of noiselessness, birdsong dying and wind rustling silent leaves as it passed, but it kept far away enough that the foursome didn’t notice anything odd.

On the path the friends were fairly quiet, tired and hungry and unwilling to end up in pointless arguments while their moods were so low. Virgil walked ahead, with Roman just behind and Patton and Logan walked together in the rear. Remus bared its teeth at their proximity, especially when Patton shivered and Logan put an arm around him to warm him up which should’ve been Remus’s job. But out of everything Remus had learned, possibly the most valuable one was that it was a monster.

It had the utmost faith that Patton wouldn’t see it that way, but it couldn’t be so sure about the other three- the magic box taught it many things, and more than one flat world with singing had very clearly imparted the message that looking different was bad unless you found the prettiest, nicest person you could and waited for them to love you.

It had long lived in hope, flitting over the cabin night after night warbling in its best impression of singing, dreaming of that person, and now here he was!

Remus was very in love indeed.

The car was waiting for them when they got back to the road, and Roman sighed loudly in relief that it hadn’t been stolen or damaged overnight. Logan had already called for a mechanic and a tow, and there was a taxi to take all of them bar Roman to their actual holiday home nearby while Roman went with his car to get a replacement for the weekend.

They tumbled in gratefully, warming up in the heated interior and speeding away to their destination, utterly unaware that Remus was tearing through the trees alongside them, desperately trying to keep up with his quickly disappearing Patton. They didn’t see the way he fell behind with a wail of misery, but kept going, determined to find their trail again and following the smell of gas.

They didn’t know that while they were stumbling out of the car and into their home for the weekend, relaxing with relief and setting about preparing themselves breakfast; Remus was moving ever closer, inexorably pulled towards his happy ending.

Chapter Text

The vacation had gone very smoothly after their initial mishap, but Patton was always glad to be back home in his own apartment, able to lounge around with his guilty pleasure on Netflix, in his cosiest clothing and a tub of ice cream.

So maybe it wasn’t the healthiest way to spend his evenings; but he loved it nonetheless. Self-care, right? Besides, he still dragged himself out to the gym with Roman and walked to and from work every day. It wasn’t the end of the world if he indulged a little bit.

There was just one thing up with his routine at the moment. Ever since he’d got back, he’d noticed a few weird happenings around his apartment. His nights were restless and for some reason he’d just stopped hearing his alarm in the mornings full stop, despite checking his phone was on loud and buying a second alarm clock as a backup. And, maybe related or maybe not, he was sleeping crazy well? The deepest, most peaceful sleep he’d had in a while, as if the whole world was perfectly still and quiet for the entire night and not a thing disturbed him.

There was also the matter of the peanut butter.

That morning when he’d got up (late again and scrambling to get ready for work on time, grateful he still apparently had a working body clock somehow) he’d nearly tripped and fallen over an empty jar of peanut butter that was laying on the floor by his bed. How it had got there he was dismayed to say he had no clue, because- and this was maybe the most interesting fact of all- he didn’t eat peanut butter. There was literally none in his apartment. Somehow the jar had been both emptied and planted in his room, without him knowing.

Ordinarily he’d explain it away as a prank from Roman, but seeing as Roman hadn’t had time to visit, busy catching up on work after their long weekend away, it couldn’t have been him. And it (probably) wasn’t a burglar or stalker because nothing else was even so much as shifted from where it was supposed to be, and the locks were all untouched as well.

Patton was beyond confused.

Logan and Virgil had been pretty unhelpful when they’d met up for lunch, but for some strange reason Roman’s joking suggestion of being haunted stuck with him, and though he wouldn’t admit it Patton decided that looking into what to do about a haunting couldn’t hurt. Especially if none of his friends found out, because then he’d never hear the end of it.

A quick google search revealed a truck load of conflicting information that made his head swim, and he groaned, falling back on his couch with a pout for a second before sitting back up again, legs crossed with the laptop balancing on top. “Okay Pat, you are gonna sift through this and find your answers. We got this,” he told himself, settling in to scroll through the seven million odd results.

A filter to ‘what to do when you’re being haunted’ helped when he finally thought to try it, rather than bothering to try and confirm that that was indeed what was happening. It actually brought up an ad for some kind of ghost hunter site that he opened in a new tab for later, and was surprised by the professionalism of when he returned to it. Some guy calling himself ‘The Night’s Watch’ (which wasn’t super creative if you asked Patton) was advertising a ghost assessment and removal service in the city, and he had some kind of bargain free first visit on offer.

Patton had dialled before he thought too hard about what he was doing, surprised when a croaky, slurred voice picked up the phone. “'Lo? Do you know what time it is?” They groaned down the line and he had to pull back to check it was the right number. “Hello? Are you just going to silently breathe at me or did you need to make an appointment for your haunting?”

Oh okay, right number then. “Um, sorry! I just, wanted to do the free visit?”

There was a silence. “Shit, is that still on there? I thought I changed it-” the voice muttered. “Sure, why not? Should'a got rid of it if I didn’t want people to notice it. What’s your address, I’ll be right round.”

“Tonight?!” Patton squeaked, surprised.

“Yeah tonight. I work at night. Exclusively. Did you not read that part?”

“No yeah, I mean yes, but- that’s very short notice.”

“I’m not busy. Only so many hauntings in a peaceful city like this one right? Address?”

“Oh right,” Patton rattled off the address, wondering why there was a weird dark stain in the top corner of his living room ceiling. He got up to peer at it as the voice on the phone took down various contact details.

“I’ll see you in like, whenever the bus shows up. An hour? Ah who knows, see you later dude.” They hung up without a further word and Patton realised too late that he didn’t know anything about who was coming. The mark was forgotten and he rushed around to tidy up a bit, dressing in something more company-appropriate and sitting the jar of peanut butter on the table at the ready in case the guy needed to do any mojo on it. Patton didn’t know, okay? He was very much in the dark here.

The buzzer went only forty minutes later, the same voice tinny through the intercom but recognisable enough that he let them in. And then at last, in his doorway, stood The Night’s Watch, complete with slicked back hair, dark sunglasses, grey trench coat and an empty Starbucks to-go cup.

“Remy Picani, call me anything but they and I walk,” the ghost hunter said, taking Patton’s extended hand and shaking it once firmly before striding into the apartment and looking around. “So what are you experiencing, cold spots? Moving items? Wailing? Suspicious fog? That one’s usually just eye-related, have you done an eye test recently?”

Patton struggled to keep up as Remy walked and talked at an unbelievable pace. “Um, no nothing like that, actually, and I wear glasses so… It was the noise. Or the no noise? Oh and the peanut butter!” Remy turned to look at him, peering over their sunglasses with a raised eyebrow. Patton faltered before hurrying to get the item in question and hesitantly holding it out with a hopeful smile.

Remy’s eyebrow stayed raised, but they took the jar gingerly and eyed it. “And… what exactly was up with the uh, the peanut butter?” They asked, unscrewing the top to peer inside and screwing it back on so they could toss it in their hand a few times. Patton made a face because yeah, it wasn’t super ghosty now he thought about it…

“Um, it appeared. It’s not actually mine at all- I never have any in the apartment. I found it this morning on the floor, just sitting there.”

“Just sitting on the floor. M'kay, sure. And what else were you saying, about the noise?”

Patton shook his head. “No, the no noise. It’s been like, weirdly quiet a lot? I haven’t heard my alarm go off for the past three days unless I’ve already been awake. Apparently I’ve been sleeping through number 4c’s newborn baby too. Which is weird- I’m a light sleeper you know?”

Remy had gone entirely still. “Um, M- Remy? Is everything o-”

“Where did you find the jar?” Remy asked urgently, grabbing him by the shoulders after shoving their glasses up onto their head. “Quick, quick!”

“Um, by the bed! Just on my bedroom floor, but-”

“Holy shit.”

“What? What is it?!” Patton wailed, but Remy was off, leaping through the space into the bedroom and stopping dead into the bedroom. Patton ran right into the back of them, trying to peer over their shoulder to see what they were so struck by. But there was nothing there.

Remy sniffed a few times, taking careful, light steps forwards towards the bed. They circled slightly to head towards the closet, but they turned back to the bed after a quick squint, and stopped almost exactly where he’d found the peanut butter jar. “Here, right?” They murmured, looking back to see him nod. “On my signal, turn the lights off, okay?” For a few more moments they just stood there, but then they took one more step towards the bed and turned to nod to Patton, and as the light switch flipped all hell broke lose.

Something exploded from under the bed frame and filled the room with shadow darker than the shadows already cast, and the whole world went muffled and quiet. Patton felt the inexplicable urge to pop his ears but he couldn’t, and besides he was too busy screaming at the scene before him, where Remy was tussling with a great big, shadowy thing.

What in the name of all that was holy had been living under his bed?!

Chapter Text

“So, you have a Ucodo…” Remy said in the silence after they’d slammed the bedroom door shut. They’d somehow managed to wrestle the thing away and tangle it in a blanket, dragging Patton out of the room and closing the creature inside. It wasn’t silent for long, with whining and scratching and thumps soon coming from the other side, and really compared to the stifling nothingness Patton had been experiencing he was loathe to call anything silence again unless it really fit the bill. 

They looked at each other, leaning back against the wood and wincing as it shuddered with the force of the thing inside trying to escape. “A you-codo?” Patton asked, mouth clumsy around the unfamiliar word. Remy shook their head, and Patton noticed they’d lost their sunglasses in the tussle. They looked oddly naked without them. 

“Yeah a Ucodo. Unidentifiable creature of demonic origin. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it, I made it up. But uh, more importantly- that’s a freakin’ mid-liminal creature in there, that’s like basically unheard of outside of very cursed places. They don’t just live in city apartments with cream walls, is what I’m saying. So how did you end up with one here?” They looked at Patton with sharp curiosity and he squirmed under their piercing gaze. He didn’t know what to say. He was more than a little distracted by the noises on the other side of the door, actually, and he didn’t have an answer that would satisfy the ghost (and monster? probably?) hunter. 

In the end he had to settle for a shrug. “I actually don’t know. The uh- the yuke… thingy, just started doing its stuff when I got back from vacation. I didn’t do anything um, supernatural to bring it here.” 

A particularly hard bang on the door made them both jump, but the movement inside went still and the creature just started make soft, oddly mournful sounds. Patton felt… a little bit guilty. And it seemed Remy could see his train of thought because they grabbed his arm before he could open his mouth to voice it, let alone move. “Do not open this door. It is a terrible idea! We don’t know what we’re dealing with or what it wants or why it’s here. Why don’t you go back to that vacation you mentioned?”

Patton sighed in frustration, dropping his head back against the door again and trying to tune out the sad dog-like noises spilling out from under the door. “Um, right. Well we just spent the weekend away in the nature park a few hours from here. In a cabin. It was pretty relaxing; nothing weird happened there. We did uh,” he frowned, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses as he thought back. Remy shifted towards him in interest. 

“You did what?” They urged, excitement in their voice. 

“We broke down and had to stay the night in an abandoned cabin?”

Remy whooped. It clearly startled the creature as much as it startled Patton because it yelped and went briefly quiet before letting out a soft, wary coo and snuffling at the door. It was pretty loud actually, without that strange silencing effect, and Patton shuddered to think how closely he’d been living with it these past few days. “That’s it! Abandoned cabin? Um, perfect?! Freakin’ jackpot! It must have caught your scent and followed you. You probably didn’t notice it while you were in the other cabin because it’s quiet out there anyway, and things being moved wouldn’t have been that noticeable. But why you? And what does it want? Could it-”

“I think…” Patton interjected with a small frown. “I think it’s friendly.”

“What? No,” Remy scoffed. “That’s impossible. Didn’t you hear me? It’s a Ucodo. How could something like that be friendly?” 

“I don’t know but it hasn’t hurt me once, and if you’re right it’s been nearby for like, six days! All it’s done is make me miss my alarm a bunch of times and steal some peanut butter, I don’t- why would it wait this long to hurt me?”

The bedroom was quiet, but Patton got the distinct feeling that the creature was listening. Remy pursed their lips, but they seemed to be considering his suggestion at least. 

After a while they sighed. “Okay look, honestly I’ve never actually come across a real demon or Ucodo before. What you’re saying isn’t… it doesn’t not make sense. But this is the real world, Patton. You have a literal actual inhuman creature in your bedroom. Are you sure you want to risk opening this door?”

Blue eyes met brown, and even the creature waited for the answer. 

“… Yes. I’m sure. Open it up.”

Chapter Text

When Patton had uttered those fateful words he’d never expected this to be the outcome. He’d expected some gruesome creature, maybe some kind of dog but warped, that would run away and escape into the night never to be seen again. He hadn’t expected the Yuke. 

“No wait, not the blinds!” He yelped, jumping up from the couch and legging it to where the Yuke was crouched, chewing on the bottom of one of the hanging panels. The Yuke immediately sped up, trying to stuff as much of the plastic into its mouth as hu- as demonically possible before Patton reached it and pulled the snack away, bopping it on the nose. “Bad Yukey! I have a security deposit to pay back when we move out of here, c'mon!" 

The Yuke bared its teeth with a multi-layered hiss, before scarpering to the bedroom to its favourite spot under the bed, knocking into the growing piles of empty peanut butter jars it collected under there and giving Remy a wide berth on the way. 

"Honestly, I don’t know why you let it stay,” they muttered mutinously, carrying a fourth refill of coffee back to the little living room and sprawling on one side of the couch. “I keep telling you I’m sure I’ve got the exorcism spell down by now, it could be out of your hair just like that.” They clicked their fingers to demonstrate, rolling their eyes at the deep, booming foghorn sound of protest from the bedroom. Patton shook his head and sat back down, picking up his knitting. 

“No, I know you think it’s best but the Yuke is really very nice! It’s a great pest control, and it’s very good for volume control too. No noise complaints, like, wow!”
The Yuke was abruptly and without warning peering around the side of the couch arm near Patton, an eerie but well-intentioned grin splitting its face into two lines of teeth. It had learned smiling just that morning and seemed determined to keep practising. 

Remy shuddered delicately, but Patton reached out to scritch the Yuke’s chin with a fond smile, before going back to the click-clack of his knitting needles, which had the Yuke utterly enraptured as it slunk up to drape along the back of the couch entirely too fluidly to look natural. 

“Besides, it really wants to stay. I think Yukey likes it here, with me. It gets peanut butter whenever it wants, and it gets sad when I leave the room, I think it was lonely before.” The Yuke snuffled and slid down the back of the couch to perch next to Patton and watch his hands from up close, every movement more like slime dripping than anything else. Did it even have bones? What a horrible thought. Remy took comfort in the familiar realness of their cup of coffee. 

“Why do you call it that anyway?” They asked, trying to distinguish just how the Yuke’s limbs worked. “Doesn’t it get a name instead of that very clever  designation I gave it, now you’ve adopted it as a pet?" 

When the Yuke had been calmed down and sent packing back to the bedroom to sulk, and once Remy had stopped shouting about nearly being murdered for an innocent comment, Patton finally managed to think about the question. Luckily none of the coffee had been lost in the fray as the Yuke launched itself at the ghost-slash-occasionally-monster hunter in a hurt fury, because then Patton would have had no chance separating them and stopping their fight. 

"Why doesn’t it get a name?” He mused. “It’s a good point, actually. Maybe it wants one. Maybe it has one already! I’ll have to find out. Or giv-" 

He stopped because it was sat in the bedroom doorway, perfectly keeping itself behind the boundary of the room with its whole body pressed in a totally flat line that made Remy’s eyes hurt, whining pitifully through its flat face. Patton inevitably melted, promising that he would come and cuddle soon, but he needed to finish up with Remy without any more violence because he was far too tired for that. 

In a way it was sweet the way the Yuke brightened, proceeding to roll around on the floor and flow up onto the bed to get comfortable, keeping an eye on Patton through the open door all the while. Remy could admit that, sure. That didn’t mean the whole situation wasn’t weird as all shit though. 

"We’ll figure that out next, I think! Thanks for the nudge. Now I really should go get ready for bed and cuddles time, but I’ll see you soon? This weekend maybe, you wanted to go into town for a shop, right?" 

Remy stood as he did and they exchanged cheek kisses to the cacophony of the Yuke’s possessive… not growls. "You bet, babes. I’ll text you, don’t worry. Don’t get eaten and/or possessed and/or turned into anything nasty until I see you next. Bye hellbeast!” They waved and the Yuke grumbled almost humanly, turning its back decisively on them. 

Patton chuckled as he closed the door behind his friend. It was a weird life he was living these days, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.